Campaigning works

Our campaigns have helped bring about change in Nepal. Read on to find more.

Our campaigns and influencing work have brought about a variety of achievements in recent years. From getting Nepalese citizens to show their support for sanitation to making better use of available water, we’ve got lots to celebrate.

Better financing for sanitation

Working with campaigners at a community level, we campaigned for a separate and transparent sanitation line in the national budget. Before 2008, water and sanitation were classified under the same heading leaving sanitation to be neglected. Successful parliamentary influencing meant that in 2008, for the first time in the history of Nepal, a separate budget line of NRs.50 million (just under USD 1 million) was allocated separately for sanitation. In following year, an incremental growth of the separate sanitation budget line has indicated increased attention of policy makers towards the genuine cause of sanitation issues.

Showing popular support for water, sanitation and hygiene

In 2008, we enabled 150,000 people across half the country to support the call for high level political commitments to water and sanitation. The mass petition was handed to Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala who met with campaigners to discuss the importance of water and sanitation. As a results of the mass hand in, campaigners are now granted audiences with the Prime Ministers, Water sector ministers, Finance ministers and National Planning Commission on a regular basis as part of the continued fight to improve access.

Recognising water and sanitation as fundamental right

In the lead up to the Third South Asian Conference on Sanitation (SACOSAN), WaterAid joined with other campaigning organization to call for an inclusion of text that would ensure "access to sanitation and safe drinking water is a basic right, and according national priority to sanitation is imperative".

Thanks to intense lobbying efforts with Government officials, the declaration was incorporated into the final text of the conference which underscored the rights of every man, woman and child to call on their local district to provide water, sanitation and hygiene.

Making better use of drinking water

Making better use of existing water sources is a vital part of improving water resource management. To this end, WaterAid has worked with other water, sanitation and hygiene organizations to raise the priority of innovative water management systems like rainwater harvesting, ground water and water recharging ponds.

As part of the campaign thousands of people gathered in the streets of Kathmandu with messages demanding solutions to combat the water and sanitation crisis. Combined with lobbying efforts, this pressure on the Government led to the adoption of nationwide policies to better equip communities to use.

In the run up to the importance South Asian Conference on Sanitation, campaigners lobbied official to recognise sanitation as a human right and won.